


A Weird Place to Hang Out

by ultimateparadox



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Guilt, Nightmares, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29855382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultimateparadox/pseuds/ultimateparadox
Summary: Caspar carries a trauma that's not his own and finds an unexpected source of advice for it.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez & Hilda Valentine Goneril
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	A Weird Place to Hang Out

Caspar was just waving good-bye to Linhardt when he spotted another of his classmates exiting the dining hall. He got along with most of the Black Eagles well enough, even if Bernadetta was kind of quiet and Hubert was kind of weird, but it took a special kind of bravery that he hadn’t yet mastered to look Petra Macneary in the eye. It wasn’t something he could do, not yet, so he fled the pond like a coward when she stepped outside, shame in his heart. He rounded the buildings until he arrived at the stables, rows and rows of stalls he could easily get lost in. 

Hubert got on his case on more than one occasion regarding stealth, so he decided to try to put in some practice, walking purposefully but unhurried, because to hide a tree he was supposed to put it in a forest. He needed to look like he belonged. He liked to think he was succeeding when no one gave him a passing glance, but as he ducked into a stall, Caspar realized he should have checked to see if it was occupied first. 

“Um.” Hilda and Claude stared back at him from the flanks of a stone-gray wyvern, reins in hand. Even the wyvern seemed confused to see him. Animals weren’t stupid, so it probably was. 

“Uh, hey. What’re you guys doin’ here?” he asked casually.

Claude looked one misplaced word away from busting a gut. There was something snakelike about him, Casper always thought, but when they talked he was always kind enough. Hilda, on the other hand, was watching him with undisguised befuddlement. “Teach has Hilda and I on Sky Watch this week,” Claude finally explained. “I was showing her how to mind the mounts since she hasn't done this before.”

“I still don’t see why they recommended a _wyvern_ to me. It’s not your fault, Graham,” she said to the wyvern, patting his snout gently. He pressed into her hand like a needy cat, but Hilda didn't seem to know what to do with that. She was clearly unfamiliar with creatures of poor Graham's type. “I’m sure you’re lovely. I just figured if I was going to be flying it would be on a pegasus.”

Caspar peaked out of the stall. Petra didn’t seem to have followed him, but he still sank down to the floor to stay out of sight. Distractedly, he commented, “Might be because of the weight. It might be too heavy for pegasi, but not for wyverns.”

Turning around, Caspar caught their expressions. Claude looked somewhere in between delight and like he’d sucked a lemon, while Hilda was harder to read, asking, “The _weight_ , huh?”

“Yeah? Battle axes are heavy, Hilda. You feel it in your upper back, don’t you?”

“The weight of the _axe,_ ” Claude said, positively beaming. 

Like wind gone from her sails, Hilda deflated. “The weight of the axe.” She looked like she was having trouble getting her head wrapped around it. Caspar could empathize; he wasn't dumb, but some things sure did get complicated. Maybe Hilda had more trouble with flying mounts than her professor thought?

“You might also have a problem with your thighs,” he continued helpfully. He wasn’t much for flying himself, but his brother was known to ride sky high from time to time. He remembered a few things they’d learned the hard way and thought Hilda might benefit from them.

_“My thighs?”_

He gestured to them. The stockings were a good look, but he wasn’t sure if they would be enough protection. “They make special saddles for wyverns so that you don’t get your legs all scratched up from their scales.”

Claude’s sound of recognition turned their heads. “That’s right, we haven’t even picked one up yet for practice. Wait here, I’ll go grab one and show you how it fits.”

“How chivalrous,” Hilda chirped. 

“Everybody gets one. When we put it back I’ll show you where they are and you can saddle up every day _all by yourself_. How exciting! Excuse me, Caspar, I’m just gonna...go around you.” Caspar shifted to let Claude out of the stall, keeping low, staring intensely into the flash of the world outside before the door shut again. Still no Petra.

"So what are _you_ doing here?"

Caspar turned back around to see a world of pink. Hilda was so close he was reflected in her eyes. "Gah! How did you get there so fast?"

"This is a wyvern stall, not a great hall. It's not like it's hard. It does seem like a weird place to just...hang out in, though."

The shame from before rose up in his throat like bile. Waspishly, Caspar snapped, "I'm not hiding!"

Hilda's eyebrows rose. "I didn't...hiding?"

"Right, hiding." Exhaling heavily, his hot temper washed out with his air. "I'm definitely not hiding."

"That's not like you."

"Right again! It's not like me to hide, because I don't."

Hilda moved to join him in a sit against the wall. Their shoulders brushed and the pressure increased when she leaned lightly against his bicep. "Not that. Well, not that exactly. It's still weird of you to hide, but I was talking about _lying._ "

That stung. Caspar had been stung by a variety of things: bees, sewing needles, plants. It was always a truth that stung the most. "Yeah, well."

"I'm not going to ask you what you're hiding from," Hilda said airily.

"If I was hiding, I'd thank you."

"I am absolutely going to ask _who_ you are hiding from."

"Wow." Caspar hadn't even known he could sound that dry.

"Come on! I won't tell anyone, I promise!"

"Or," Caspar interjected, "we can just sit here quietly until your house leader comes back and we can leave it." Fingers with sharp nails jabbed into the spaces between his ribs and Caspar jerked away. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Who are you and what have you done with Caspar von Bergliez?"

"I'm me! Stop!"

Hilda's frown was simply legendary. "We may not be in the same house, but I thought we were friends, at least. Whatever." 

Caspar stared at her, heart thundering and thoughts rushing. He hadn't wanted to hurt her _feelings_. "Girls are so powerful," he whispered with some amount of awe. Perhaps there would be epics written about the delicate flower of House Goneril and they would flourish with her exploits while featuring zero bloodshed. She'd probably appreciate that.

"Hm."

She didn't say anything else and with each passing moment of silence a strange guilt bubbled in his gut. It stirred Caspar's insides like he had eaten something bad, but the only way to get rid of it was to _word vomit_ instead of actually blowing chunks. In frustration, he blurted, "Fine! Fine. But nobody hears anything about this, okay? Especially not Petra, considering I'm hiding from _her_."

"My lips are sealed. Why?"

"Okay, so, my father's kind of important back home, right?" Caspar started.

Hilda made an affirming noise. "A military man, right?"

Nodding, he continued, "Minister of Military Affairs, that's him. Big, decorated war hero. I'm not afraid of a fight, but if there's one man I'd worry about meeting on a battlefield, it's my old man."

"War hero, huh?" She hummed a thoughtful little noise. Then, "Oh. Petra."

"It's hard to look at her some days, knowing my dad killed hers," he admitted. "But that's not...the only problem." At her prompting, Caspar said, "I have trouble sleeping. They're dumb nightmares, but they're really messing with me, you know?"

"Nightmares are the worst," Hilda had drawn close, applying her gentle lean again. Her presence was warm and it soothed the jagged-toothed creature tearing him up inside. "You're already having a tough time when you're awake, being tired certainly isn't helping. What happens in the nightmares, Caspar?"

"There's...there's two that happen pretty regularly. About Petra."

"Let's hear it."

"The first one's...honestly, not as bad," explained Caspar. He shifted uncomfortably before leaning his shoulder back into Hilda's. She was solid and real, which helped the words flow. "Sometimes I'm back in my bed at home and sometimes I'm still here at Garreg Mach, but she comes to find me in the night to take revenge. That one...sucks. It goes away when I wake up, though."

"And the other?"

Recalling it made Caspar's hands shake, so he clenched them into fists. He stared at them, at the discoloration on his knuckles from brawling. They anchored him, reminded him he was still strong. "Do I have to?"

"It's the one that hurts more, right?" Hilda glanced at him, naked concern on her face. "I'd really like to hear it if it would help you, but I'm not going to push you for it if you really don't want to say anything."

"Pretty nice way of saying you're nosy."

It brought a tiny smile to her face. "Can't both be true?"

"I guess. You're a good friend, Hilda," Caspar said. Then he sighed, ready to come clean. "Okay, I'm gonna tell you. The second nightmare...that one's harder. It's, uh. I don't know what Petra looked like as a kid, but I'm dreaming of her as one, right? And she's always crying. She's crying and she misses her father. And I'm always standing just out of reach, with _my_ father at my back, scaring her because he's her boogeyman. When I wake up from that one, it doesn't go away. I look at Petra and I know that it's all true."

Hilda was quiet for a moment, then said apropos to nothing, "My brother Holst defends the eastern border against Almyra. Their wyvern riders and archers are people he praises a lot in his letters, even though they're trying to kill him. He's honorable, and kind of an idiot, but honorable idiots are super great. Every day I'm worried I'll get a letter that someone's flown down and shot his head off his neck."

Alarmed, Caspar questioned, "Hilda?"

"When I was younger, I'd have nightmares about it. I couldn't open letters from the Locket because I was so terrified it would be bad news," Hilda said with a breathy laugh. "Everyone at the estate got so frustrated with me that they actually requested Holst come home for a bit.

"They'd apparently tattled on me, so Holst was, like, _super_ concerned. Gave me a big hug and sat us down so he could hear it from me. Then, he took us through the territory until he found this flatland he used to train on and handed me an axe. Me!"

Caspar had seen her in the field and didn't doubt her strength for a moment. "Hey, take it from me. During that mock battle? Your form was killer!" 

Hilda scoffed with a confident grin. "My _form_ is always killer. Anyway, Holst told me that he's the Alliance's best general, and if I was so worried I'd have to be an even better general so I could protect him, and then he started drilling me. The nerve, I swear."

Caspar laughed, a weight falling from his chest. "I ran drills with my brother, too. He's so bossy. Once I graduate I'll show him exactly what I've learned."

"Ugh, brothers. I bet you're thinking I took Holst's words to heart and started some lifelong quest to be the best, right?"

__"That's...kinda how that goes, isn't it?" It was like all the hero tales Caspar had read from boyhood as the unremarkable second son with no war medals and no expectations because of it. It would have made her a regular folk hero.__

____

____

__Smiling conspiratorially, Hilda leaned in, "I said, 'To the rats with that!' as soon as that training session ended. Even with all that effort I had just put in, I couldn't hold a candle to him. He hadn't even broken a sweat! I realized Holst had to be close to unbeatable. I know there's always the possibility of an accident, and so sometimes I'm still scared for him, but I felt so much better after seeing he was so strong. I only cried a little when he headed back to his fortress."_ _

__Caspar had faith in his older brother's skill, too, but there was a definitive edge to Hilda's bold admiration that made him believe that Holst Goneril would send him back to Bergliez with his tail between his legs. Fired up, Caspar wanted to duel him. It sounded like the fight of a lifetime. "Introduce us sometime, okay? He sounds like a beast!"_ _

__"Oh?" Twirling a strand of pink hair around her finger, Hilda asked coyly, "You want to meet my family, Caspar?"_ _

__"Yeah! My blood's already pumping!"_ _

__Her eyes rolled, but she was still smiling, whatever that meant for him. Before he could try to figure it out, Hilda stated, "The moral of the story is that I think you should talk to Petra. Iron out where you stand with one another, hash out the truths, and work your way from there. If you don't, those nightmares aren't going to go away anytime soon."_ _

__"You're probably right, but I don't like it." Caspar paused, scowling. "I also don't like running away and hiding, so it's knocking out a few birds with one stone."_ _

__Hilda opened her mouth to reply when Graham the noble wyvern had enough of being ignored and shuffled his face into her personal space with whuffing snorts. "Ugh!"_ _

__Caspar reached out to pat his nose like he'd seen his brother do. "So let me get this straight, you're going to fly one of these guys? Even after all you just told me?"_ _

__Hilda flicked her hair back and begrudgingly gave the wyvern's head crest a quick pet. "I was planning to fly, the professor just recommended a wyvern. After all, if I need to stop someone from killing my brother from on high, I should be up there, too."_ _

__It took Caspar a moment, but then he felt a surge of respect course through him. "'To the rats,' huh?"_ _

__"Exactly."_ _

__A heavy thud shook the side of the stall and Caspar lurched away from it, glancing up the wall. The familiar leathers of a wyvern saddle hung across the pane, Claude leaning over it to peer in. How long had he been there? "Hello, noble lady and gent. Wasn't sure you'd still be here, Caspar, hi. Ready to learn, Hilda?"_ _

__"Yeah, yeah," Hilda murmured, gently pushing Graham back to stand, brushing dirt and hay from her skirt. "You sticking around, Caspar?"_ _

__Rising to a stand beside her, Caspar shook his head. "Nah, I'll get out of your hair. Think I should go find Petra. Did you see her Claude?"_ _

__Pausing to think, Claude gave a wishy-washy wave of his hand. "I might have seen her near the training grounds?"_ _

__"Got it, I'll check there first, thanks. And you, too, Hilda. Thanks a lot!" He waved them off, exiting the wyvern's stall. Resolve felt like iron, reinforcing his every step, and he left to find Petra Macneary._ _


End file.
